Seconds Away Read Free Page B

make it look like I wasn’t just standing around waiting for her text.
    Pathetic, right?
    Uncle Myron hurried off to his car. I headed into the kitchen and grabbed a snack. I pictured Rachel at home, texting me. I had only been to Rachel’s house once. Yesterday. It was a big sprawling estate with a gate at the front of the driveway. It also looked empty and like a really lonely place to live.
    The local newspaper, the
West Essex Tribune,
was on the kitchen table. The front-page story for the third straight issue involved the big-time actress Angelica Wyatt’s visit to our little town. Rumor had it that not only was Angelica Wyatt filming a movie here but that, per the headline:
     
    LOCAL TEENS TO BE USED AS EXTRAS!
     
    Everyone at Kasselton High was excited about this possibility. The boys in my school, many of whom still had that controversial poster of Angelica Wyatt in a wet bikini on their walls, were particularly thrilled.
    I, on the other hand, had more important things to occupy my time.
    I pushed the paper to the side and took out the photograph of the Butcher of Lodz. I put it on the table and stared hard at it. Then I closed my eyes, imprinting the picture in my mind like a sunspot. I made myself go back to that California highway, to the accident, to being trapped in the car, to seeing my dying father, to looking into those green eyes with the yellow rings as they snuffed out all hope.
    In my mind’s eye, I locked in on the paramedic’s face. Then I tried to superimpose this image in my head onto the one I’d created by staring at that photograph.
    It was the same man.
    But that was impossible. So maybe the Butcher had a son who looked just like him. Or a grandson. Or maybe I was losing my mind.
    I should go see the Bat Lady again. I should demand answers.
    But I had to think about how to approach her. I had to think it through and consider every possibility and try to stay logical. Plus there was something else to consider.
    There is an old saying, “Nothing is certain, except death and taxes.”
    Whoever said that forgot one: homework.
    I debated asking Uncle Myron to write an excuse note for me:
     
    Dear Mrs. Friedman:
    Mickey’s French Revolution assignment will be tardy because he was rescuing another student, watching a man get shot, getting the stuffing beaten out of him, being grilled by the cops . . . oh, and he saw a photograph of an old Nazi who disguised himself as the California paramedic who told him that his father was dead.
    Mickey will turn in the assignment next week.
    Nah. I didn’t think that would work. That, and I hate the word
tardy
. How come you only use the word
tardy
when it comes to school? And how come you don’t just say
late
?
    Man, I needed sleep.
    My bedroom had been, for too many years, Uncle Myron’s bedroom. It was located in the basement and would be considered “retro” if it wasn’t completely lame. There was a vinyl beanbag chair and a lava lamp and even trophies that dated back more than twenty years.
    My partner for the French Revolution project was none other than Rachel Caldwell. I hadn’t known Rachel long, but she hit me as one of those girls who always handed her assignments in on time. You know the type. She comes in on test day and swears she’s going to fail and then she finishes the test in record time, hands in her perfect paper, and spends the rest of the class putting reinforcements in her notebook.
    No way she’d let me be “tardy” with the assignment.
    Fifteen minutes later, my cell phone rang. It was Rachel.
    I hit the appropriate button and said, “Hello?”
    “Hi.”
    “Hi.”
    Yep. Pretty dang smooth all the way around. I decided to go now with what was fast becoming my patented icebreaker: “You okay?”
    “I guess,” she said.
    Rachel sounded strangely distracted.
    “Pretty wild night,” I said.
    “Mickey?”
    “Yes?”
    “Do you think . . . ?”
    “What?”
    “I don’t know, Mickey. Is it over? It doesn’t